Jeffrey Archer The Clifton Chronicles Series 7 Books Collection Set

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The characters yet once again excels with their striking demeanor. They are real to the very core, flawed, and extremely believable. All the characters are distinct from one another, and even the bad ones, like Lady Virginia too will make the readers fall for her constantly plotting ideas against the Cliftons, and also the weaker ones who make the story interesting. Each and every character is like a rare piece of gem that brightens up the whole story with their individual glow and aura. Sir Giles Barrington is now a minister of the Crown, and looks set for even higher office, until an official trip to Berlin does not end as a diplomatic success. Once again, Giles’s political career is thrown off balance by none other than his old adversary, Major Alex Fisher, who once again stands against him at the election. But who wins this time? My advice to the readers who have never read anything of Jeffrey would be to read the first parts of this series before this one and your favorite thriller/drama writer would be decided then and there.

Sebastian Clifton is now the Chief Executive of Farthings Bank and a workaholic, whose personal life is thrown into disarray when he falls for Priya, a beautiful Indian girl. But her parents have already chosen the man she is going to marry. Meanwhile, Sebastian's rivals Adrian Sloane and Desmond Mellor are still plotting to bring him and his chairman Hakim Bishara down, so they can take over Farthings. Harry Clifton is an author on a crusade. As President of the English PEN society, he is determined to be the catalyst for the Russians freeing jailed author Anatoly Babakov. In Whitehall, Giles Barrington discovers the truth about his wife Karin from the Cabinet Secretary. Is she a spy or a pawn in a larger game? Writing was easy to read, addictive and flawless. It was told in third person narrative from Emma, Harry, Giles, Seb, Bishra, and Virginia’s perspective; started in 1970 from where the previous book ended with result of court case against Emma and ended in 1978. Being second last book of the series, lot of things were happening.There are few authors better than Jeffrey Archer at plotting. True, he will extract his characters in distress with some crazy Deus Ex Machina, but that is kept muffled in this book. I thought that Cometh the Hour is not equal to his best, but given that the writer is quite old (and I'm prone to say he has passed his peak), it's a great effort on his part, to give us quite a lot to think about. ABOUT THIS BOOK: Cometh the Hour opens with the reading of a suicide note, which has devastating consequences for Harry and Emma Clifton, Giles Barrington and Lady Virginia.

I admire the authors broad knowledge in many aspects of life. If he came up with all these stories without help of experts such financial, medical or legal advisers, then Jeff Archer should be congratulated for his supersized brain. We’ve finally come to the last instalment in the Clifton Chronicles series. What was originally supposed to be a trilogy eventually turned into an amazing seven book series spanning more than 60 years, and I’m so glad it did. I have waited for this book (thankfully not so long in between book 6 and 7 this time!) to put an end to this fantastic series. I enjoyed every word and didn’t want the book to finish.

Sebastian Clifton becomes chairman of Farthings Kaufman Bank after Hakim Bishara resigns for personal reasons. Sebastian and his wife Samantha's talented daughter, Jessica, is expelled from the Slade School of Fine Art, but her aunt Grace comes to her rescue. All good things must come to an end and that is true with the Clifton Chronicles. This Was a Man is the seventh and final book in the series. I am left with mixed feelings. I am sad because I will miss Harry, Emma, Giles, and Sebastian. The ending was terrific and emotional but made sense and was fitting. Meanwhile, Lady Virginia is about to flee the country to avoid her creditors when the Duchess of Hertford dies, and she sees another opportunity to clear her debts and finally trump the Cliftons and Barringtons. Although it’s obvious, this book is part of a series, and to be honest, you do need to have read the other books before this one. It would make the story much more understandable, and if you didn’t you will miss out on 6 books of great storytelling! I’ve heard a lot of people say that they won’t read any Archer books as they don’t like the man – whatever you feel about him or his past, you can’t deny that the man is an amazing author and storyteller, capturing each decade, scenario or situation perfectly. To tell the stories of the lives of multiple characters running in parallel, the stories are a bit disjointed. When telling the stories of one character, lives of others are put on hold. I guess there is not a lot one can do when one novel tries to tell multiple stories.

I’ve enjoyed writing The Clifton Chronicles and I’d like to thank all those readers who’ve stayed with the whole series and let me know by tweet or by Facebook post or through my blog how they feel.When I was 70 years old, I needed something to focus on, something to drive me and I realized if I set the task of writing a series of books called The Clifton Chronicles, the story of Harry Clifton and the woman he falls in love with, Emma Barrington and his best friend Giles Barrington, I would be working flat out for at least five years. So that was the original purpose. There is always a bit to say about the way the writer accumulates everything in the climax. Beautiful thing was that even if you might have been thinking about some other endings, you will finally be satisfied with the author's perspective. Atleast I was.

When Harry Clifton visits his publisher in New York, he learns that he has been elected as the new president of English PEN, and immediately launches a campaign for the release of a fellow author, Anatoly Babakov, who’s imprisoned in Siberia. Babakov’s crime? Writing a book called Uncle Joe, a devastating insight into what it was like to work for Stalin. When I read through the last chapter of the book, I felt a profound impact emotionally. Different from most of the fictions that tell stories of people in a particular period or in a particular situation, this series tell the while life of a few individuals, e.g. Harry, Emma and Giles. Their struggles, fortunes and misfortunes, failures and successes all form part of the entire life experiences of them. When Emma and Harry died at the end, I felt a profound loss, like the loss of someone who I have known for their entire lives. We meet Harry, Emma, Giles, Karin, Sebastian, Samantha, Jessica, Lady Virginia and all the other characters we’ve come to love for the very last time. I don’t want to say too much a) because it would spoil it for those who haven’t yet read, and b) my husband is still working his way through the other books and wouldn’t be happy if he read any spoilers!, but this book was definitely worth the wait. It ties up all the little loose ends which have been unravelling all the way through the series, all the while managing to keep you hanging at the end of every chapter with a cliff-hanger in true Archer style. The ending was lovely, and I knew I would cry, but very fitting for these fine books. I’m not sure what I will have to look forward to now, Jeffrey Archer has managed to keep me in suspense until the new instalment came out for years. I suppose I shall have to read them all over again! Harry Clifton remains determined to get Anatoly Babakov released from a gulag in Siberia, following the international success of his acclaimed book, Uncle Joe. But then something unexpected happens that none of them could have anticipated. The Chronicles continue to meander aimlessly in the penultimate episode. There are ten or more short stories that progress so rapidly that one could almost feel the weight of the author's deadline pressure. For a change, there are no famous Archerisq close votes or a cliff-hanger book-end - two definite new positives! However, substituting them are these plethora of' tales that appear to have been lifted straight out of a collection of 1970s' books and movies, summarised almost without much modification.Cometh the Hour is the penultimate book in the Clifton Chronicles and I eagerly await the publication of This Was A Man later this year (2016). It is an excellent series and no less than I have come to expect from this author. This Was a Man opens with a shot being fired, but who pulled the trigger, and who lives and who dies? So determined is Harry to see Babakov released and the book published, that he puts his own life in danger.